8 Things Top Real Estate Agents Do That Others Don't

As interviewed by John Reh of Agent Uprising, Brian Icenhower explains some of the general principles that he coaches and trains to top producing real estate agents to help separate them from the rest of the industry. Also listen to the complete interview by listening to the full forty-minute podcast on Agent Uprising: What Separates a Top 5% of Real Estate Agent From Everyone Else with Brian Icenhower, by clicking on the link below. The following is an examination of the 8 key strategies covered in the interview complete with links to all of the tools necessary to start implementing them.

Real Estate Agents- Brian Icenhower — Click Image to Listen to Podcast of Complete Interview

1. Always Keep the Marketing Department Open

It’s the very rare real estate agent that consistently and proactively lead generates for new business for even one or two hours per day. But it is this small percentage of agents that earn up the vast majority of all real estate commissions. Avoid the real estate roller coaster by generating leads each day. High-volume agents don’t just service existing business and then start lead generating once they have closed the majority of their transactions. Instead, they block time to do something each business day that gets them closer to earning a new client. In a nutshell, there are two ways to be successful in real estate:

By Default: live in the same area for years where everyone knows you and eventually sends you business; or
By Design: time-block a relatively small portion of each business day to proactively generate for new leads.

2. Top Real Estate Agents Focus on Listings

If a real estate agent is working more than 65 hours a week and not closing more than 45 transactions annually, the agent either has a time management problem and/or is working with far more buyers than sellers. You can handle four times as many listing sides than buyer sides at the same time. So, top producing real estate agents always focus their lead generation activities on the listing side.

3. Build a Referral Business

The first thing real estate agents should do is gather everyone they know and put them in one place where they can easily access their info to contact them regularly. Agents should constantly be building this referral base of people and have a system for staying in contact with these people by diversifying the ways they are contacted.

4. Don’t Be Afraid to Prospect

For real estate agents looking for immediate business, top agents know that the quickest conversion ratios come from contacting FSBOs (for-sale-by-owners) and expired listings. Although many agents are reluctant to reach out to people that they don’t know, these are people who typically want to sell their home right now. In the following video Brian Icenhower interviews three real estate agents that quickly overcame their initial fear of prospecting and achieved amazing results.

5. Use Real Estate Scripts

Scripts are important. Successful real estate agents understand that whether they use someone else’s scripts or their own, they’ll eventually start saying the same things that they know will work. Using tested real estate scripts created by others simply eliminates the trial and error process and enables agents to start seeing desired results more quickly.

6. Be of Service While Lead Generating

So as to not “bother” the general public when prospecting for new business, top real estate agents always tie the reason they’re contacting people in with providing some type of value at the same time. Always come from a mindset of contribution. When marketing a listing, try coordinating these activities with opportunities to generate new business at the same time. For example, when calling neighbors around a listing make part of your conversation about if they, or anyone they know, are looking to buy or sell anytime soon.

7. Leverage Work to Others

When real estate agents consistently do not have time to prospect for new business because they are too busy servicing their existing business it’s time to hire someone to help out. Typically, this will happen when agents reach about $6 million to $10 million in annual sales volume. The first hire should be an administrative assistant, not a buyer’s agent. Administrative assistants help agents make more money by freeing up time for agents to perform more important revenue-generating activities.

brian icenhower real estate agents — Click Image to Listen to Podcast of Complete Interview

8. Lightening Round of Questions:

What’s the least effective form of marketing that others should avoid: “Broker Open Houses”
What keeps you motivated: “Being of service to people”
You’ve got 30 days, no database and only $1000, what do you do: “Preview properties, knock doors around listings, buy a subscription to a database of FSBO and expired listings and start calling people”

There are many things you can do to set yourself aside from other agents. Recently, Fit Small Business updated their guide to 43 Free & Paid Real Estate Lead Generation Ideas using social media, software, and other marketing strategies. This is a great additional marketing resource for real estate agents and we recommend checking it out!